Exhibitions
Events
On display
Areta Wilkinson and Moa-Hunter Fashions
Areta Wilkinson Hei Tupa 2013. Oxidised sterling silver, polyester. Collection Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased, 2016
Areta Wilkinson, the artist working on Whakapapa I (from Moa-Hunter Fashions series) 2018. Waimakariri and Rakahuri river stones, tree stumps, kōkōwai (red ochre), silver. Image courtesy of the artist and Two Rooms Gallery, Auckland
Talk
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Moa-hunter descendant and artist Areta Wilkinson (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mamoe, Waitaha) will talk about her exhibition project Moa-Hunter Fashions.
Moa-Hunter Fashions is a new iteration of the project Wilkinson made for the the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art.
Through studio practice and applied research artist Areta Wilkinson expresses concepts of Ngāi Tahu whakapapa (genealogy links and relationships) and mahinga kai customary sites of natural resources and cultural production. Like her ancestors before her she utilises local resources for the task at hand – hammerstones from the Waimakariri and Rakahuri Ashley Rivers, local pigments, clays and gold.
Layers of relationships to the past are ever present. Through photograms of moa butchery bones and refuse from early campsites, 3D prints of archaic artefacts used for mark making on ceramics, shapes and forms referencing historic Ngāi Tahu visual culture.
Related reading: Jewellery
Exhibition
Areta Wilkinson: Moa-Hunter Fashions
8 February 2021
Artist Areta Wilkinson recalls whakapapa through object making.
Exhibition
Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania
3 July 2022
Experience the Gallery’s collection from the perspective of our place in Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, the Pacific Ocean.
Collection
Areta Wilkinson Hei Tupa
Areta Wilkinson combines her contemporary jewellery practice anchored in an awareness of the body with traditional Māori systems of knowledge, in which objects are often used to make connections between people and to convey stories. Previously she has made works that relate to the taonga whakarākei (personal adornments) of her Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe and Ngāi Tahu ancestors. “These works do not seek to replicate an existing image of the world”, she has said, “but instead alert me to a new way of seeing from the world in which I stand, whilst still maintaining a relationship with the past.”
Hei Tupa is a contemporary take on a tupa, or scallop shell, necklace from Rāpaki near Ōtautahi Christchurch. In making this work, Areta asserts the role of Ngāi Tahu tūpuna as the first artists working in the region.
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )
Commentary
Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania
Every few years, the curatorial team at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū embarks on a major rehang of the first-floor collection area. It’s no small undertaking finding fresh ways to combine long-held, well-known works and new acquisitions, looking for combinations that will offer compelling viewing, immersive storytelling and intellectual engagement to our wide and evolving visitor base. This time, director Blair Jackson added another dimension to our task, challenging us to reimagine the physical orientation of the spaces to encourage visitors to interact with the architecture in a completely different way.
Artist Profile
Lisa Walker: 0 + 0 = 0
It might be tempting to say that Lisa Walker makes jewellery out of any old thing – but it isn’t true. The eclectic objects that form her distinctive necklaces, brooches and other body-adornments are meticulously selected and shrewdly modified before they see the light of day. She salvages her materials from an unlikely cornucopia of sources – re-presenting objects such as car parts, animal skins and even kitchen utensils through the frame of body adornment’s long history. Tiny Lego hats, helmets and hairpieces – of the kind that clog vacuum cleaner nozzles in children’s bedrooms around the world – are strung on finely plaited cords like exotic beads or shells; trashy gossip magazines are lashed together to yield a breastplate befitting our celebrity-obsessed culture; dozens of oboe reeds donated by a musician friend bristle round the wearer’s neck like the teeth of some unimaginable deep sea leviathan.
Article
The pleasure of making: objects taking centre stage in the space of the art gallery
Was it serendipity that the opening of Christchurch Art Gallery's Burster Flipper Wobbler Dripper Spinner Stacker Shaker Maker coincided with that of Slip Cast, a group exhibition at the Dowse Art Museum that also focused on the pleasure that artists take in manipulating materials in the process of making art?
Notes
Aotearoa
A texture-rich new exhibition at Oxford showcases the considerable talents of six Canterbury artists.
Notes
Host a brooch
A number of Gallery staff are planning to take part in the final Host a Brooch event this weekend.
Exhibition
Talisman
Twelve New Zealand jewellery artists have made new work responding to the theme of talismans in culture. A selection of rare Oceanic talismans from Canterbury Museum are also included.
Exhibition
Simplicity and Splendour
An overview of the much-loved Arts and Crafts movement in Canterbury from 1882.
Collection
Fiona Pardington Mauria mai, tono ano
The title of this work means ‘to bring to light, to claim again’. The seven heitiki (greenstone pendants) Fiona Pardington has photographed came originally from her iwi, Kāi Tahu, in Te Waipounamu. All are now held in the collection of Auckland Museum. Traditionally worn close to the heart, heitiki are sacred fertility symbols in te ao Māori, strongly associated with whakapapa (family connections across time). Fiona not only wanted to record the physical attributes of these old and precious objects, but also to capture their more intangible qualities, such as how they speak of the past and this place, despite being stored so far away.
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )